Back From Hawaii

Hey I'm back! (;->)
Anyway I have some advice and a report:
Advice: Take only the long pants that you wear to the airport at home, no long sleeved shirts, 1-2 pairs of crosstrainers, 1 pair hikeing boots - this is lava kids, take atleast 6 tee shirts, 3 swimsuits, and your favorite sandals. Buy your mask and snorkel in advance if you can, otherwisse there are excellent dive shops in Hawaii, just pick up your gear when your in a big town. Mosquitos can be a problem in the jungle. Wear booties when entering the ocean and pull on fins that fit over them when you are far enough out - like in 4 feet of water. Don't chase or touch the turtles whales or dolphins and do not provoke anything moderately large.
We had a great time - stayed with friends - ate way too many expensive tourist style meals and still lost weight. Our friends had a cocker and a german shepard and they became part pf My "pack".
On Kiluea the vent Pu"oo'o now has a second vent spewing forth lava and gas. It was pretty VOGgy while we were there (Voclanic fOG) and they say Mona Lowa or Hilaueaalii above Kona may blow soon. The air quality can be very bad and that makes Maui all the more attrative.
Saw lots of really large tropical fish - or rather subtropical- like moorish idols and butterfly fish.
Jim S

Hey Jim, Nice to hear you had a good trip. Were you SCUBA diving or snorkeling? Captain Cook is a good place for both.

Jim -

About the boots on the lava - back when I took my undergrad geology course, our professor, Bob Sharp, was explaining about lava and its varied types. He noted that one of the types prominently found on the Big Islands (and others in the group) is called "Aaa". The legend is that one of the early natives, fresh off the outrigger as it were, was being pursued by some fearsome beast (probably an earlier arrival who didn't like trespassers in his tropical paradise). As he was fleeing (barefoot, of course, since shoes and sandals were unknown), he ran out onto this lava flow. The lava being quite sharp and fragmented caused him to cry out in pain "AAAAAAAA!!!!" And so, ever since, that particular type of lava, with its characteristic sharp points and edges (from the gas bubbles frozen in and then breaking open), has been called "Aaa" (as distinct from pahoihoi, which is much smoother).

Pretty funny Bill. That stuff is wicked. It will cut up a pair of shoes or boots in no time. You see it mostly on the Big Island, but there is sharp stuff all over the place if it isn't covered with dirt.

Its actually "aa" pronounced "ah" "ah", or ouch ouch...

We snorkel - I am a scuba diver and my wife was on the world champion San Francisco Marrionette swim team, so we compromise by snorkeling, or as I call it - skin diving, but one of my young diver friends told me that she had never heard the term before.

There's a lot of interesting volcanoe stuff going on around the world and you google something- like "hawaii volcanoe" and get linked to the USGS and all kinds of current volcanoe reports. I think the air on the Big Island is going to go downhill now as another big volcanoe will surely erupt again soon, like Mona Lowa and then people may be wearing masks for years... (worst case). Its very interesting how the people living on the island are pretty much in denial about living on an active vocanoe. From the seafloor to the top Mona Lowa is clearly the largest and tallest mountain on Earth. Oh and there is an underwater volcanoe located 20 miles west of Kona, wonder how long it would take a sunami wave moving near the speed of sound in water to get there? Couple of minutes...

The Big Island is sort of young and has far less coral than the other islands and even has some of its own types of fish. I saw turtles while diving and they can just barely move their great front legs and stay ahead of a human with fins. [Not that I would or ever did follow a turtle or marine mammal closely nor have I ever touched or fed one.] I have held very still and had them swim close as they pased me.

The east side of the islands is the wet side - mostly impenetrable jungle while the west side is dryer. Also lava is sharp whether underwater or not and you should wear dive booties to enter the water and use fins that slip over your booties - like scuba divers do. Oh and watch out for some really nasty centipedes - big ones.
Jim S

If you are running from a threat, it is more likely pronounced "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!", not the wimpy "ouchy, ouchy" ;=>D

Hey, that was a true story. I mean, my geology prof told it to us, not necessarily the incident itself. I did not make it up myself.

Centipedes? What about millipedes? I understand they are much more nasty.

Hey dudes...
Bill - the millipedes are pretty much harmless small red jobs with no bite and sorta slow - lots of legs to coordinate. The blue green millipedes are ferocious monsters that could be used in the movies with no mods. I mean yuck dude...

And yes I suppose AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA would be more like it if you had to run on it. ANyway we were married 24 years ago on a tiny beach in a sacred lavaflow just north of "place of refuge". I think this may be where Kamehameha 2
killed his brother who become the spiritual King. It seems that in the old Hawaian religion anyone who did anything against the religious laws - like step on dirk where the king had stepped - was immediately slain lest the gods punish everyone. When the white men came they knew nothing of the Hawaian laws and broke most of them yet no punishment came, so the King under pressure from the Queen abolished the old religion and killed his brother and also his brothers wife and then ate with women, which was against the former laws. Thus the old Hawaian reigion was abolished by the Hawaians themselves as unfair and unreasonable if not blatantly wrong - prior to any missionaries arriving in the islands.

There also appears to be some bat pollenated flowers on Hawaii.

I mean the centipedes are bad.

Jim, I was a scuba instructor on Oahu for a few years and did most of my diving there. Went over to the Big Island for one trip to Kona on a live aboard for a weekend. Did some diving off Maui and Lanai, but mostly around Oahu. The only way to catch a turtle is to sneak up on them. They look ungainly but man, they are really fast when they want to be.